Tricking My Eyes

A week or so ago my computer got infected by a trojan and I couldn't rescue all the data on my laptop. I ended up losing a lot of work on all my current projects and so I don't think there will be too many updates in December. I also can't keep on the story topic for the moment with Won Long Leg for the same reason.

Here's something interesting though. Everyone holds a pen their very own way and looks at their paper in a certain way. Some keep their face close to the paper while drawing, and some turn the page at 45 degrees while drawing. There's no wrong in any of this in my opinion. Every now and then though, it's good to see things straight.

Maybe it's a problem with my vision but I know that I can't always see if curves are good or not. I've noticed also that some drawings of mine tend to lean a bit on one side if I don't pay too much attention. So I came up with a trick to verify if my curves are ok. I rotate 90 degrees in all directions and correct on the way. Like in the picture above.

I'll be coloring that one. It's me waiting for the bus stop at -40 back in the day. It's 10 degrees still here in Berlin and there's no snow. I miss the cold. (:

Making Up Stories

I wrote another story for Won Long Leg, my very own legend of Kung-fu and I'm in the process of making a short animated film from all these ideas. This is really not something I have extensively done before. I learned that about 10 years ago so I thought I might want to refresh what I've learned.

The story itself;
     Just like the comic, I write a basic story line first. It needs to be very basic, not much more than a page. It should answer the questions you might want to have answered before buying a book for example.
                  - What kind of story is that? (horror, comedy, etc)
                  - What is the main quest? (true love, ruling the world, paint bird cages, etc)
                  - Who are the character and can I relate to them?
                  - Some hints on where the story is going

      However, that isn't clear enough for me when drawing a comic or planning an animation. I take this story and start slicing the story in single sentences. Each sentences can translate to about one panel in cartoon term and about one action in the animated version. From doing this exercise I also get a more detailed view of the story and can see if the timing of each element is good or not.

     While doing that, I often stop and think about my characters and take a lot of notes for the next step; Character design and description. I'm currently looking into that topic and I have found quite a few interesting things so far. I'll post again once I'm a bit further along that project.

     On another note, I'll be participating in a 10k race soon and need to train a bit more... I'll try and post again soon! Have a super week!

A Lot of Rocks

I was hiking for four days in Saxon Switzerland and it was brilliant. Just in time to get the last few nice days of autumn it seems. I won't go into a detailed description of the whole thing but the trip included amazing landscapes, climbing a lot of stairs and going through a bridge and burg from the middle age. All of it was impressive!

You can see my photo album here: Malerweg 

The Joke is in German

I was out friday night with friends, and I very rarely go out since we are here. While we were there, a lot of interesting discussions came up. This group was as international as it gets, and we all had to speak our second if not third language to understand the action or just order a beer. It was a lot of fun! We ended up in the train on the way back and two people had disappeared from the group..! Other than that, perfect evening.

I had my drawing book by me, but the most recent one, with almost nothing in it. I thought I had brought the old one. Not that I draw when people are around, but because I draw when waiting for people, and I'm almost always the first one to arrive. So I sat there and drew. I drew homeless people I had seen on a tube, two french ladies gossiping, and an angry bearded guy. A very Berlinian sample I'd say.

I always get a bit nervous when people ask about my job, at least I used to. People think that being able to draw is a 'gift'. Something that was given to you upon birth. The idea is funny. Seriously though, with arts in general, if people get to believe you just 'have it', that it looks too easy, then you're generally very good at what you do and have exercised it for countless hours. I'm really not there yet. I failed 10 times at making a thinking pose. That's how it is, erase and try again until you have it. I think most people are just ashamed of trying and failing when it comes to drawing. I have some horrible drawings in my book too.. I'm sure other artists too...

That said I definitely need to keep drawing, I think I'm also improving.. I also need new glasses. By the way the joke was that a friend of ours didn't know the meaning of the word ''kitsch''. She's from Ukraine and speaks russian so none of us could help in that language. We tried to explain it in german (there's too much to see... or baroque for example...) and then she looked at us a bit shocked and asked; ''But baroque and rosettes and grapes are nice! Why do you say that as if kitsch was a bad thing?!''

Incredible considering the amount of kitsch the russians have in their culture, apparently the word kitsch didn't make it in russian. If it did than please by any mean let me know! haha

Have a nice week!

Won Long Leg Returns!

Won Long Leg, the kung-fu master, clan leader and legend returns in this masterpiece about love and revenge in a war-torn China. If you are a fan of epic Chinese kung-fu movies, you will not be disappointed!

(I kinda wish the movie would actually exist)    .__.

Getting Ideas Across

I decided to start yet another small project beside the current webcomic (skull-collector) and the games (leekgames). Which, by the way (the game), I am having a hard time with at the moment. I'm looking for a good flash programmer and having a hard time. Then again, I'm also picky I should say...

This other project is a tiny comic. Panels even shorter than what I have at the moment and it most likely only will exist as a printed version. I'm very much excited about that project and the idea was so simple. I was also thinking about a short story that I might print or animate I'm not sure yet..

Creating is different from one person to another, there's no limit. When I start a project, it never starts like the last one. Everytime I think I'll have to start making ideas in more of a strategic manner but as it turns out, the more ideas you have and develop, the more they come..  completely natural, without forcing yourself into one of these aweful 'brainstorming' sessions. I never liked brainstorming or talking with other people about my ideas.. Not that I don't want to share them, but it's a bit like a joke. If you tell it wrong only just one time, you don't get the reaction you expected and the experience is ruined.

As you can guess, I pretty much need to isolate myself and sit all alone to draw. Then I let it flow out, if I make tons of mistake and use the wrong pose, or wrong facial expression that's alright. No one's listening to my joke yet (to use that comparison again).. so I can come back and perfect it as many time as I want.

Sometime the idea comes as a sentence or a story-line. That's where it's most complicated to me... When that happens then it becomes very abstract to me. Because I need to imagine the decors and all characters and the interactions, and then the format, and, and... and at some point I start drawing and things are bound to need much more correction. It was the case with the image of the bacon flag and I failed, even though the image is still nice. I was thinking about the olympics, and drew this dude with the flag. Then I thought about athletes and health, and my hands drew the bacon on the flag. Funny to me at the time, but hard to get across...

Time to go now! :)  Stay tuned here or on the skull-collector for the other projects, I'm expecting the next mini project to be ready by december.. (no promises though!!)

Have a good week!

September is here...

It's September already. I can feel it, the motivation is dropping, less sunshine and it rains quite a lot. The snails are out, it's hard to not step on them during my jogging runs. I now jog 20-30 km every week and ride my bike everyday, wondering how long that will last with all the rain...
Language classes have started again, it's not nearly as hard as I'd hope, but  it's ok. Leaves me with a lot of time to meet the other students and get out of the house. I realised lately why I have such a hard time making friends. It's really hard to get me out of my shell and I move extremely slowly when it comes to friendship.

I've been working a lot lately, which is fantastic and makes me incredibly tired. I'm working on bonus material for the comic that will come next month or even later. More to come on that topic...

New Screen! :D

It's an exciting thing really! It's a fat new shiny monitor (I almost wrote minotor I'm so excited!)! The weirdest part is that, I can't really draw exactly like before. Because I worked on a small screen I had smaller strokes. Now I can see the whole pictures, it's a bit like everything is too big.

Someone on a webcomic community I visit recently asked around what size everyone draws on. I think it's a really personal choice and there's no bad or good. I know I like drawing on small pieces. There's something about all that free space that bothers me a little bit.My strokes become too long and curve in wrong ways...

I'll adapt to this awesome new monitor, but it made me curious about how other artists work...

Where's the Summer?

Since I'm back most of my time has been spent on the web comic. The last week was probably the busiest in a long time. Interesting though, I think I touch every medium I know..! The web comic is advancing quite nicely, the next game coming up is also making nice progress. All that to say, I'm buried under work and haven't really seen the outside!

Not that I care so much, the weather was not too good over the last two weeks. I went jogging yesterday for the first time in a month, that should tell you how bad the weather has been... I'm looking forward to at least another day at the beach before the summer is all over. I feel a bit trapped between four walls!

I'm thinking about taking a day or two off..

LOOK! It's RED!

I noticed two days ago that one of my cayenne pepper is all red. It happened over night, from green to bright red! It's a lovely pepper too, proper size. Now I'm just wondering if I should harvest it or leave it on the branch. Apparently the longer they stay on the branch the spicier they become. I'll wait.

A lot of my work and time was sunk on the comic last weekend and today. Something is coming up and I don't want to spoil it. There's also a lot of website work coming my way, two very different designs too. Along with that comes some possible game design and game graphics. When so much work needs to be done I'm definitely happy that the weather is so bad!

My arms are hurting lately from sitting all crippled all day at my desk. Unbelievable that after all that time working at a computer, I still can't find a good position to sit down and work.

I go back to vectorizing the world and more...

Won Long Leg; The Legend

Yesterday, we were talking and somehow in the conversation slipped the sentence: ''only one long leg was sticking out''. I misunderstood, and he repeated it, he spoke it wrong and it became: ''Won Long Leg''. Which I made out to be some Chinese guy.

So began the work on this lovely poster for the Won Long Leg movie. His ultimate kung-fu skill would obviously be the kicking part (or running, long legs do that too...). The fun part in making this poster was to imagine the movie and remembering Chinese movies I have seen. How did the pockets  look? What were the titles like? Why do they always look so cheap yet so epic?

It's still pretty much in yellow tone, like all my drawings. P says I'm in a yellow-phase. Some people have a purple phase, I turn to yellow to make me comfortable. I can't help it. Maybe someday I'll just have enough of the yellow and turn to something more decent like... say... orange? *just kidding*

I'm updating the comic tonight and some bonus are coming up in the next few weeks. So, please have a look at www.skull-collector.com

Good Times

I drew this about three years ago and I think it was meant to depict how the world is going wrong. Unfortunately (or fortunately!), I didn't write it down and have completely forgotten what it was about.

The jetlag is officially over, I can start living again. So much so, I even went to a wedding two days ago. A friend of mine was getting married and she looked really pretty! The reception was perfect, the food was brilliant and the guests were all really nice.

On my way to the wedding, I had time to go through a much liked neighborhood of Berlin. I, on the other hand, do not like that particular neighborhood. I'm not going to call names on my city, or claim the neighborhood I live in as best.

That particular neighborhood is; dirty, has high criminality, smells bad, is not cleaned, has no flowers on the streets, has high number of unemployed, has high number of immigrants (I'm one myself, so I can use that), and is the center of what calls itself 'berlin's artistic community'.
Every tourist wants to see that particular neighborhood.

The neighborhood I live in is; clean, has a castle to visit, offers nice clean parks, is covered in totally normal living houses and totally normal german and immigrants people that do not freak at you and do not drink or make music in the tube station.
Only locals visit the neighborhood I live in.

That said, my friend's wedding was in that neighborhood and against all my expectations (considering the neighborhood) were wrong. The restaurant was beautiful, the service was good and the food was good.

Ah! I should stop ranting...

Fly Eastwards!

Flying back eastwards always gives me the feeling that a day has gone missing! Well, at least the jetlag reminds me that it is a real possibility. I left at 3pm and arrived at 3pm the next day, flying a total of seven hours, during which I couldn't sleep at all.

In other news, I had a lot of fun drawing while away. I'm now turning these drawings into vector files and will post whenever a new one is ready. Not to mention that I also need to work on the comic and upcoming games. It's doesn't look like I'll be going to the beach anytime soon!

One of the drawings I made is the one above. I plan on making some french learning flash cards with important verbs words and sentences. It's a fun little project and since it can be done one card at a time, it's not too demanding.

I'll update soon again with more vectorized files and news.

Poutine Is NOT a Cure For Jetlag

The flight was rather smooth, considering that I was sitting beside a 7 months old child. Since I arrived here it's been all about food and the amazing weather. The summer isn't exactly long here, and 30 degrees are nice; especially if there's a pool in the backyard. Tomorrow I'll be driving to the next little town with the pick-up truck! Excitement is killing me.

I drew quite a lot, but I don't have access to the computer too much. The best of these drawings will be vectorized when I get home. I pretty much like the idea of making french flash cards with the pantomime.

Something went wrong when I tried uploading the new comic pages and I have to admit; the service with domain express is fantastic! Everytime I've had problems I used the live chat feature and it worked like a charm.

I ate two poutines already since I'm here. I might weight 10lbs more when I come home. The fatigue is mostly gone now however. No more of the constant headaches and sleepiness! I never had real jetlag before...

Now I'm very much looking forward to going back home and caring for my plants again. Apparently the watermelons are huge and we have tons of cayenne peppers!

This has to be the most unconnected post you've read in a while!
Vacations do that to people, apparently.

Birthday Wishes

Every year, family members ask; What do you want for your birthday?
Every year, I wonder what kind of answer they expect.

Which got me thinking, is there a non-written limit of age after which family members should not ask that question anymore? It should be obvious, no? A bit like smelling  your hand in public is obviously going to look wrong and suspicious?

Just to make clear, I don't mind giving hints here and there to what I want... The only person I expect to receive gifts from is the hubby, and he didn't disappoint again this year. Lots of nice little creams, perfum, coca-cola lip smackers, cookies, cake, etc. No tiaras and no ponies, sadly! (;

I'll be in Canada for 10 days, with plenty of time to myself. Most certainly I'll come back with a few new drawings but don't expect posts everyday. Not to brag, but I'll be uploading my webcomic from a phone-modem *cough-cough*. haha

Vacations

Vacations are great. Except if you live abroad. Because then, people expect you to go to your home town / country during your vacations.

It's as if people thought that because you're abroad, you're living a vacation everyday except when your with them. I'm looking forward to explaining to my family next year, that I might just skip seeing them because I want to travel to countries I have actually not been to before.

I was thinking about all of this yesterday while drawing these little beach people.  These new aquarelle pencils I bought are fantastic! Aquarelle was never something that grabbed my attention (I think it's mainly due to the blurry look of it). I wanted normal pencils and bought them by mistake. The texture of the color is what I really like about these.

Gone to the beach.

Ahh!! The day is almost over!
Now that this blog is finally up and running, I might just go and swim at the lake.

On another note; I bought myself new pencils today. Exciting, innit?
I will be putting mostly drawings and short texts here; that means pretty much everything that doesn't fit on my other sites.

Swimming time for now!